On quality and the consumer, Coates said that she had recently helped judge the Scottish Gin Awards and, in her opinion, only eight out of 60 gins were “acceptable.”
Difford, in talking about the current standards and their enforcement, said it was too late, “the ship had already sailed”.
Seed said that gin was perceived as a quintessentially English drink, typified by the gin & tonic but there were also classic cocktails such as Negronis and Martinis - and one of the agreed, specific definitions was ‘London Dry’. Therefore he felt it was down to UK producers, brand owners and the enforcement authorities to sort out exactly what is gin and what isn’t.
There was a lot of discussion and exchanges about base alcohol, botanicals, provenance, production techniques, and labelling, which Atkinson had to brush aside on the basis, “we will be here until next week if we have to discuss these,” he said.
There is a suggestion that the debate will lead to some sort of working party to look at the way the gin market is heading and coming up with a new set of rules and regulations - and most crucially, how to enforce them.
